I would say that if you live West of the Mississippi, don't use that .45 if you have any doubt. If you live East of the Mississippi, and like the .45, go ahead and use it!Those Western deer are so much harder to kill! :rotf: :haha: :blah: That 125 grain lead ball just does not retain enough energy out at 100 yards to insure that it will punch through a deer's chest, no matter what the MV is.
Seriously, killing deer is always about shot placement. If you put a .45 cal. RB in the heart, or in the spine of a deer, its going to die very quickly. Just try to keep the range under 100 yds.
If you live and hunt in an area where you have problems with deer thieves, then call out the police and track them down. Its almost always the same small group of people who do that sort of thing, and there are a lot more honest hunters than these bums. If they see a mob of hunters- all as armed as they are- coming at them over a stolen deer, they are going to heading for the hills quick.
When my friend's deer was stolen, and I found out about it, a hour or so later, I asked him why he didn't immediately walk down the trail calling for help from all the other hunters on the farm? We were basically spaced out within earshot of each other, and could have easily raise the "Hew and Cry" and had his posse all ready within minutes. Instead, he went back to camp and kicked the walls of the hut where he was staying.
When I killed my first deer, I put a business card under its tongue, before I left to go put my gun away, and find help to haul her out of that deep ravine. I figured that if someone else tried to claim the deer, they would not be looking in its mouth, and I would have "proof" that I killed the deer. I also didn't gut it before I came back, so that if someone did try to steal it, they would have a lot more hard work to do. It took an hour to go out to my car, find help, and return.
I understood the limits of the .45 when I chose a caliber for my deer rifle. I chose a .50 caliber barrel, instead, after shooting the .45 for 3 years. I knew I could kill deer inside 50 yds, but I didn't like the idea of having to use one to shoot a deer at 100 yds, or beyond. I had shot my .45 enough on windy days to know how much that ball is moved around with any kind of breeze at all.
Being a bit conservative, I would call the .45 PRB a 75 yard deer round. The .40 PRB is a .50 yard Deer round. I think the .50 PRB is a legitimate 100 yard deer round, and the .54 extends that range to 125 yards. At this point, your ability to shoot iron sights, and the size of the front sight against a deer begins to limit the degree of accuracy you have at longer ranges, even though a .58, or .62, or .69 caliber rifle will kill at longer ranges. You would have to hunt open areas, on sunny days, where you could use a rest of some kind, and even then, wind conditions might make it unlikely to hit a deer at 150 yards or further, with any of these rounds. The slower, and larger the caliber of ball is, the more affect winds will have on moving it off POA.
Now, I have been only talking about PRBs up until now. If you use conicals( bullets) in ML rifles, everything changes, dramatically. The wind can still move bullets off POA, but a spinning conical resists wind pressure better than a round ball. Shooting Conicals, a .40 caliber rifle becomes a 100 yard deer round. The .45 will become a 150 yard deer round. But at that point, recoil, and the larger trajectory of the .50 and larger calibers makes them only marginally better, using Iron Sights, at ranges over 150 yards. That .45 conical will take Elk, as will the .50 caliber bullets, and anything larger, at 100 yards and further.
If someone wants to put a scope sight on a rifle, and take shots at deer at 200 yards and beyond, then I highly recommend that they hunt the normal gun season, using a modern breechloading rifle, in some good deer cartridge caliber. Putting a scope on a muzzle loader is-- if I can steal a line-- like putting an elevator in an outhouse: It just doesn't fit!
I am not opposed to shooters using scopes if their eyesight is damaged, or limited by disease. We can make exceptions to general rules and let older hunters who are responsible for keeping ML hunting alive, and who fought to get special ML seasons, to participate a few more years by helping them overcome vision problems by using a scoped rifle in the ML seasons. The Exception to the General Rule is owed these hunters out of respect for all they have done to make modern ML deer seasons possible.
I do oppose allowing all hunters to use MLers with scopes, in a muzzle loading season. They can use those guns in the regular gun season, and compete with other hunters who shoot similarly equipped guns. If all the states limited ML season shooters to using iron sights, and a PRB only, ( except shooters with recognized handicaps) I believe the present controversy about people using the zip guns would be quickly OVER. At one time-- and perhaps even today-- Connecticutt required smooth bore muskets, Flint only, to be used in its ML season. Wouldn't that rule put a WHOA in the "giddy-up" of the zip gun industry???? Some people might actually have to get out and learn how to HUNT!
